UK Passes ‘Buffer Zone’ Law Making Silent Prayer Illegal Near Abortion Clinics

Pro-life campaigner Isabel Vaughan-Spruce in an undated file photo. Courtesy of ADF UK

Britain’s House of Commons approved legislation on Tuesday to create “buffer zones” that ban certain behaviour including silent prayer outside abortion facilities across England and Wales.

MPs voted 299–116 in favour of creating the zones.

The Public Order Bill contains powers to make it an offence for anyone who “seeks to influence, advises, persuade, or otherwise expresses opinion” to women accessing abortion services.

The bill, which is in its final stage, was designed to strengthen police powers against disruptive tactics by climate activists such as Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, and Insulate Britain.

Those found guilty of breaching the bill could be fined or face jail.

Tory and DUP MPs tabled an amendment aimed at ensuring no offence is committed if a person is “engaged in consensual communication or in silent prayer” outside clinics or hospitals offering abortion services.

However, in a free vote, the proposal was rejected by 116 votes to 299, majority 183.

Labour MP Stella Creasy holds her baby daughter in the House of Commons in London as she contributes to a debate. House of Commons/PA

Labour MP Stella Creasy, writing on Twitter, said buffer zones had been “protected from the sabotage amendment” and they would enable women to “access an abortion in peace.”

Clare Murphy, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), added on Twitter: “Anti-choice activists who stand outside our clinics talk about a lifetime of abortion regret.

“Women generally don’t regret abortions, but what stays with them – even decades on – is the invasion of their privacy by these people when they sought our help,” she added.

BPAS has previously said that “clinic harassment has an impact disproportionate to the behaviour involved, largely because of the lack of ability to avoid the activity while women and providers have to walk past them to access the clinic, the confidential nature of medical care, and the heightened emotional state of many clients.”

‘Thought Crimes’

There was concern, however, from free speech activists and Conservative MPs.

Conservative MP Andrew Lewer, moving the amendment, earlier told the Commons, “This section of the Public Order Bill is leading us into the territory of thought crimes and creates unprecedented interference with the rights to freedom of speech and thought in the UK.”

Conservative former minister Sir John Hayes added: “We now have people arrested for praying, interrogated by the police, asked what they’re praying about, what they’re thinking.

“This is dystopian. It’s like a mix of Huxley, Philip Dick, and all that.

“It is unthinkable that we should be living in a society where what people think has become a matter of police interest,” he said.

Conservative MP Danny Kruger said: “We are making a momentous step, we are crossing an enormous river. When we criminalise prayer or indeed consensual conversations, we are doing something of enormous significance.”

“What are we doing, by saying that people should not be allowed to pray, quietly, on their own?” he added.

Undated file photo of the map of the buffer zone around the Robert Clinic abortion clinic in Kings Norton, Birmingham, United Kingdom. Courtesy of the Christian Legal Centre

In December Professor Andrew Tettenborn, common law and continental jurisdictions scholar and adviser to the Free Speech Union, wrote in The Spectator that he believed “abortion clinic buffer zones are a step towards the end of free speech.”

“It is hard to see this as anything other than a prohibition on speech based on nothing more than somebody else’s preference not to hear it,” he wrote.

“One might be forgiven for thinking that this was exactly what free speech was about,” he added.

Tettenborn told The Epoch Times that he believes the bill is unprecedented, worrying, and appalling.

“It’s appalling, it gives carte blanche that allows the police to tell people to leave if they are suspected of committing an offence,” he said.

Tettenborn said that the law now means that a police officer can now just go up to someone, ask what they are doing and say, “I reasonably suspect that you might be engaging in silent prayer or offending people going into the abortion clinic, I am ordering you to leave.”

‘Watershed Moment’

“Yesterday’s vote marks a watershed moment for fundamental rights and freedoms in our country. Parliament had an opportunity to reject the criminalisation of free thought, which is an absolute right, and embrace individual liberty for all. Instead, Parliament chose to endorse censorship and criminalise peaceful activities such as silent prayer and consensual conversation,” said Jeremiah Igunnubole, legal counsel for ADF UK.

“Today it’s abortion. Tomorrow it could be another contested matter of political debate,” he added.

ADF UK has supported pro-life activists including a charity volunteer and a priest, who were prosecuted for “silently praying” and breaching an order outside an abortion facility in Birmingham. Father Sean Gough and Isabel Vaughan-Spruce were both acquitted of all charges.

On Monday, footage released by ADF saw Vaughan-Spruce arrested again at the same site, with a policeman saying, “You were still engaging in prayer, which is the offence.”

PA Media contributed to this report.